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Senate Republicans want the state’s highest court to hear their challenge to a 2010 law mandating state prison inmates be counted at their last known addresses for purposes of legislative redistricting.

A group of plaintiffs led by Sen. Betty Little, R-Queensbury, filed a pre-appeal statement Tuesday before the Court of Appeals, continuing to claim the law — passed by all Democrats — creates “is in conflict with the [constitutional] command that the Census is controlling by creating a lesser inclusive Census for reapportionment.”

Republicans say the law would completely exclude prisoners who do not give a valid address, and therefore “prevents the actual enumeration of all the inhabitants required to be counted by the process of of reapportionment,” according to the statement.

Prisoners have hitherto been counted in their jail cells during the once-a-decade process of redistricting, which is run by LATFOR, a task force controlled by Republicans who control the Senate and Democrats who dominate the Assembly.

They, along with lawyers representing the state, cited policy statements by the head of the Census Bureau saying states may count prisoners wherever they choose, and that the bureau provides segregated inmate data for that very purpose.

Still, the issue of how to count the inmates has stalled LATFOR’s progress. It has yet to unveil draft maps, and cancelled a hearing earlier this month that was scheduled to deal with the prisoner issue.

Albany County Supreme Court Justice Eugene Devine dismissed the suit Dec. 1. The Republicans are attempting to skip the Appellate Division and have their case heard by the Court of Appeals.

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